11:51am UK, Thursday February 16, 2012
Lia Hervey, Olympics producer
The architect of the original Olympic plan has said action is needed to
prevent the athletics stadium becoming a white elephant, in an exclusive
interview with Sky News. After a Sky Sports News investigation, Steve
Lawrence admitted he made the anonymous complaint to the EU Commission,
which the Government blamed for the collapse of the stadium legacy deal with
West Ham FC. Mr Lawrence was commissioned by Stratford Development
Partnership more than a decade ago to carry out a feasibility study for the
Olympics on Stratford Rail Lands once it became clear Wembley was not a
viable site for the Games. In an exclusive interview, he revealed he
complained to the European Commission in August last year because he felt
the bidding process for the future use of the stadium was "opaque" and could
lead to a heavy burden on the taxpayer. He believes a joint
athletics-football legacy would never generate the cash needed to sustain
the stadium. "There's nothing in this for me whatsoever. I don't have any
connections with any of the parties involved," he said. "I care a great deal
about the project. It's a project I started in the first place and I want
the legacy in east London to last for generations. "I felt that this could
bring about great change and I saw this process turning into a debacle and
it was not generating a sensible legacy. "I still believe that it is
unrealistic to predicate the legacy use on athletics. It can only work with
a football use in the stadium. "I do think it expanded rather more than it
needed to, I think too much land has been used up, and I believe the stadium
would have better positioned to the north of (the) Channel Tunnel railway
station. "It would have been easier to combine with the warm-up track which
would have made producing a sensible legacy project much easier. "In its
present form with athletics only, it's definitely not viable. If you look at
the 1928 stadium in Amsterdam, if you look at the Barcelona Olympic Stadium,
if you look at Munich... All of these stadia require support from the state
and have done in the long term. "The stadium in Amsterdam is now nearly 80,
maybe 90 years old and it still needs state support and, as things stand the
stand, we will be supporting the Olympic stadium for the next 100 years."
West Ham, along with Newham Council, were granted the right to use the
stadium after the 2012 Games in February last year, only for the deal to
subsequently collapse. Rival bidders Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient
launched a judicial review against the decision, claiming a £40m loan Newham
Council had agreed to lend into a limited liability partnership between them
and West Ham, amounted to unfair state aid to a commercial firm.
Alongside the judicial review in the High Court, Mr Lawrence's complaint was
made to the European Commission. The Government cited the complaint as their
reason for collapsing the deal, claiming European litigation could paralyse
the legacy for years. However, Mr Lawrence disputes the Government's
reasoning. He said: "I identified the problem very early on at the beginning
of 2011. If it had been dealt with properly and had they listened I wouldn't
have needed to make the complaint because they would have been dealing with
the issue. "Was my complaint the reason for pulling the plug on it? I'm not
sure if that's true. I don't know all the details of the judicial review but
I think it was due be decided the following week. "My feeling is that they
used the complaint as an excuse for pulling out in advance of the judicial
review (with Spurs and Leyton Orient) as they knew they were going to lose."
In December last year, the Olympic Park Legacy Company opened a new process
for bidders which included short 'concessions' rather than a longer lease as
was originally planned. Spurs, in the meantime, withdrew their interest and
decided to build a new stadium next to their present one in White Hart Lane.
The new terms are not as appealing for West Ham and Leyton Orient as they no
longer include the lucrative naming rights. These will now remain with the
Government. The successful bidder is expected to be announced on March 23.
But Mr Lawrence is calling for the bid process to be stopped immediately and
for the Government to conduct a review into the entire legacy process as he
believes a shared athletics and football legacy will not raise sufficient
revenues. Without this, he fears the stadium will become a white elephant.
"I believe if we construct a centre for athletics on the land where the
warm-up track will be and then allow the stadium to be converted for
football-only use, possibly with joint tenancy for West Ham and Leyton
Orient, now Spurs have withdrawn from the process, I think we have a project
where everyone can win. "My recommendation is to take a step back, take a
good look at it and then I think we can wind up with a genuine legacy."
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